Environment

3:14 pm

Fri May 9, 2014

A barn fire near Keeneland in Lexington has taken the lives of eight Thoroughbred horses.

Joe Best of the Lexington Fire Department said the call came in just before 1 a.m. this morning and the structure was already down when fire fighters arrived.

"By 1:05 we had gotten on the scene and determined that the barn had been burning so long that it was on the ground," said Best. "It was still on fire, but for all intensive purposes, it was a total loss."

He says a cause has not been determined and it may be difficult to pin down how the fire started.

"The skill is there, the problem on this particular one will be how much damage was actually done to the building," said Best. "We got called so late in the game that it's possible we may never know what caused the fire."